Juvenile Barn Swallow getting fed

Being in the right place at the right time, I was watching this juv Barn Swallow when the parents started feeding it. This is one of the benefits of the 1D IV - this action is happening way too fast to time the shot (much less than 1 second for the entire exchange), so I put the ISO up to 400 and when the adult bird came in I just leaned on the shutter and let the 10 fps deal with the rest. After a little while I went on my way to avoid stressing the juvenile. It was quite capable of flight, since I saw it make a couple of its own loop flights before returning to another phragmites stalk.

Brigantine division of Forsythe NWR, Sunday, using the car as a blind on the auto tour route.

Ring-billed Gull

Ring-billed Gull, at a feeding frenzy at a sluice at Brigantine division of Forsythe NWR. This is a first winter immature as indicated by the scapular contrast, the brown markings in the mantle feathers and the solidly dark distal half of the bill. I think it's just yawning.

This was during my first field test of my new 800mm f5.6L-IS lens.

Common Tern

Common Terns are coastal beach nesters whereas Forster's Terns nest in the saltmarsh. Accordingly at Brigantine there are a ton of Forster's Terns although the colony doesn't seem to be on the NWR - the fish-bearing adults headed out toward Brigantine Island. Common Terns are much less common yet I really have no problem finding them on trips at high tide. They like to hang out on one of the sluices, and I've seen up to 4 (usually it's one or two). That means there's perhaps a hundred more times Forster's than Common's, but nevertheless neither species is particularly annoyed by my presence - they're concentrating on the fish, or the Commons are ritually harassing the slimmer Forster's.

Other beach nesters that aren't too hard to find at Brigantine NWR are American Oystercatcher and Black Skimmer, although in both cases the numbers of these are relatively low too.

Osprey, Forsythe (Brigantine) NWR

There's an Osprey nest not far from the loop drive at Brigantine that's easy to photograph in morning light and the birds are accustomed to cars - not sure about people since I always shoot using mine as a "blind". Often both adults will be lounging around, but in this instance the (presumed female) made several flights into the marsh to pick up nesting material to work back into the nest, perhaps refreshing it after the accumulation of detritus. Both adults are far more agitated by fly-by Ospreys than they are by the cars, and in some cases it's not really clear why the other adults are doing such close fly-bys of an active nest. Surely Ospreys don't predate each other's nests ? There was a lot of vocalization but no actual direct confrontation.